This invention relates to an improved athletic protective garment for use by participants in sports where falls on a hard surface are common. It is more particularly directed to an outer garment to absorb the brunt of the inpact of a skater's or skier's fall.
It is well known that ice hockey requires hard body contact on the part of the participants, buth with one another and the ice surface. Some forms of roller skating competition make analogous demands on the participants. Other contact sports such as football make similar demands and protective padding is used under the uniforms worn by football and hockey players. Though numerous forms of protective padding have been devised for these players over the past several decades, it is noteworthy that all these designs are variations of the basic concept of disposing a pad over the part to be protected and fixedly locating the pad by strapping it to the torso. Having decided that a protective pad is to be strapped to the torso the problem was to devise a system of plural pads which permitted freedom of movement without sacrificing the basic protection desired. Thus it is not too surprising that protective padding for hockey players and football players bear more structural resemblances than disimilarities, and that this protective padding is notably effective.
However, not all skaters feel compelled to wear a hockey uniform when they skate, nor do all skaters play ice hockey. Just as pertinent, if not more so, is the fact that most skaters feel unduly conspicuous, if not constricted, when clad in heavy protective padding. Yet it is most desirable that all skaters be afforded some protection from bruising encounters with the ice surface. Figure skaters, ice dancers and the like, routinely risk injury because they feel unduly hampered by conventional protective padding. Advanced skaters have learned to fall, meaning, of course, that by dint of having experienced uncounted falls, they instinctively minimize the consequences of a fall. Moreoever, advanced skaters have usually become accustomed to falling since early childhood and are psychologically conditioned quite differently from skaters who commence the sport at a later age. Nonskating adults are so conditioned to fear a fall that the inevitable fall may have serious consequences, both physical and mental.
The protective garment of this invention is specifically constructed for skaters or skiers likely to fall on any hard surface, for the particular purpose of softening the impact of a fall and reducing injury caused by it. Though it will be immediately apparent that a skating surface is hard, it is not quite so apparent that a ski slope of packed snow can offer a degree of impact resistance comparable with that of ice or wood. Thus a fall on packed snow, particularly at relatively high speed, can be as bruising as a fall on ice. Moreover, ski slopes commonly include icy patches which present a difficult problem, and on which a fall can, and often does, result in serious injury. Thus, the garment of this invention may be adapted for use by skiers, the main difference being that, the skier's protective garment may have significant heat insulating characteristics to conserve body heat. Hereafter, for simplicity, we shall refer to the garment of this invention as a skater's jacket.
It should be noted in passing that there presently are available several forms of padding such as are used for protection of an ice-hockey goaltender, which would afford any skater adequate protection on the ice. For example, a skater whose torso is encased in padding such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,877,077 need not fear a fall. On the other hand, a skater wearing such padding on his legs, around his arms and over his upper and lower back areas, would have seriously restricted mobility and freedom of movement. Similarly a skater wearing a heavy leather jacket interiorly lined with a thick layer of a plastic foam of synthetic resinous material may also be afforded an adequate degree of protection, except that such a jacket would be highly insulating and most uncomfortable. As is well-known, skaters generate considerable body heat, and particularly in an indoor skating rink, heavy clothing can become oppressive. Thus it will be apparent that it is not sufficient that the skater be adequately protected from serious injury due to a fall, but that the skater also be permitted full freedom of movement while so protected.
Finally it is important that a skater wearing protective equipment feel comfortably inconspicuous. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the undesirability of a skier or figure skater practicing in the garb of a quarterback wearing goalie's pads. Even this combination, farfetched though it may be, would provide inadequate protection for the upper back region and the region immediately below the trochanter along the exterior sides of the upper femur.
Interestingly, injuries in free skating, figure skating, ice dancing, and roller skating are most frequent in the area of the lower back, the arms and the region immediately above and below the trochanter. Head injuries are infrequent except among the most inexperienced skaters, and it is unusual for skaters other than ice hockey players to wear helmets. To date there is no protective garment available for a skater, which garment may be worn over street clothes in a simple and inconspicuous manner.